Wildcats Jump Off Bubble Into Bracket

It was a good day to be a Wildcat. Arizona, Kentucky, Villanova and Kansas State, welcome to the NCAA tournament. All four Wildcat teams jumped off the bubble and into the brackets on a long, anxious Sunday afternoon.

'This was a little bit hair-raising,' said Arizona interim coach Kevin O'Neill, who has little hair to begin with. 'When they were down to the last four (entries), I was like, 'C'mon now.''

Arizona, a 10th seed in the West Region, overcame coach Lute Olson's leave of absence and key injuries to make its 24th straight NCAA appearance, the nation's longest active streak.

Meanwhile, longtime power Kentucky will make its record 49th NCAA appearance, as an 11th seed in the South. Kansas State is an 11th seed and Villanova a 12th seed in the Midwest.

'It was like the weight of the world just came off my shoulders,' said Kansas State freshman star Michael Beasley, who watched the selection show with teammates at a Manhattan, Kan. restaurant.

Villanova players and coaches watched the bracket show privately. And what happened when their name popped up?

'The place went crazy,' Villanova coach Jay Wright said. 'Everybody jumped up and screamed. I didn't even know who we played. (Freshman guard) Corey Fisher sprinted out of the room. I don't know where he went. They're a young team, and I think they would have been crushed.'

Crushed is a good way to describe the feelings at Virginia Tech, Arizona State and Ohio State, all left out.

Illinois State, too, was denied.

'We get the lucky prize of being on the door step when they slammed it,' said Illinois State coach Tim Jankovich, whose 24-9 Redbirds missed their first NCAA tournament berth since 1988. 'I don't know if we were the last one out or the second to last one out. Most people say we were one or the other.'

At least one team can blame the Georgia Bulldogs, better known for their prowess on the gridiron.

Georgia's improbable victory Sunday in the Southeastern Conference tournament final knocked an at-large team out of the brackets. Illinois, which lost the Big Ten final, also was poised to eliminate an at-large team.

'If those two teams won, it would have knocked out two,' selection committee chairman Tom O'Connor said. 'But only one won a game, so it knocked out one team that we quite frankly had in the tournament.'

O'Connor declined to say which team was bounced.

The Hokies lost a thriller to North Carolina, the No. 1 overall seed, in the Atlantic Coast Conference tourney semifinal. But that wasn't enough to overcome their lack of impressive victories.

'As we were building the field, it became apparent that they had one win over the field as a whole,' O'Connor said.

Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg lobbied to expand the field _ at least by one.

'I understand the committee has a tough decision _ I have a tough time facing my kids _ but it doesn't diminish what we accomplished this year,' Greenberg said.

The Buckeyes went from playing in the title game to missing the tourney in one year. O'Connor said the committee looked at the Buckeyes 'very seriously. But their road record really hurt them, quite frankly. They had only one road win against the top 100.'

The Sun Devils might have had the biggest beef. They swept Arizona but were denied their first NCAA bid since 2003.

'We know they beat Arizona twice,' O'Connor said. 'We're very cognizant of that. But in the final analysis ... the committee didn't feel that they were one of the 34 best at-large teams in the country.'

Coach Herb Sendek said the Sun Devils were disappointed, but he didn't want them to be portrayed as victims.

'By playing the role of the victim, you let a great opportunity slide by to learn from the experience,' Sendek said.

The lesson? Play a tougher nonconference schedule.

The Sun Devils, whose RPI was in the 80s, paid for a weak non-conference schedule; victories over Xavier and Stanford, both No. 3 seeds, weren't enough to compensate in the minds of the committee.

'The reality check is that their strength of schedule was extremely high,' O'Connor said. 'If Arizona State would have been selected for the tournament, they would have been the highest RPI ever to be selected to the NCAA.'

By contrast, the committee rewarded St. Mary's for playing a tough schedule, giving the Gaels a 10th seed in the South as the West Coast Conference landed three bids.

Still, the 25-6 Gaels weren't a lock, and that made for some nervous moments on their Moraga, Calif., campus, last week.

'It was horrible,' sophomore center Omar Samhan said. 'Every night I couldn't sleep thinking about it. I'm glad it's over and ready to go play.'

All the bubble survivors felt the same way.

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